As Russia escalates and peace talks proceed without a breakthrough, a veteran advocate is pressing the Trump Pentagon for Tomahawks, betting new leverage can do what diplomacy has not yet achieved.

Jan. 26, 2026

WASHINGTON, DC – The pressure campaign to change the trajectory of the war in Ukraine is back – quieter than before, more audacious than ever.

With Russian missiles continuing to rain down on Ukrainian cities, and the Kremlin showing little appetite for concessions, a small but increasingly vocal group of Ukraine’s advocates in Washington is arguing that the only way to force Vladimir Putin to negotiate is to strengthen Kyiv’s hand dramatically.

Their latest idea, long debated: give Ukraine Tomahawks.

At the center of the push is Dan Rice, president of American University Kyiv and a former special adviser to the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, who met one-on-one this week with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in what he described as a wide-ranging discussion about the war and Rice’s experiences in the war. “The Secretary of War is very intellectually curious about all aspects of the war,” Rice said.

Rice, a behind-the-scenes architect of earlier efforts to win US approval for cluster munitions and ATACMS missiles, now believes the moment has arrived for something far bolder – a small, undisclosed number of land-based Tomahawk cruise missiles capable of striking deep inside Russia.

There are already land-based launch systems capable of delivering Tomahawks, he reminded. They are called “Typhoons.”

“Putin only responds to force,” Rice told Kyiv Post in an exclusive interview on Sunday. “If he doesn’t agree to peace, there is a high probability President Trump will approve Tomahawks, in my opinion.”

Meeting at the Pentagon

Rice declined to detail Hegseth’s responses, calling much of the conversation confidential and rooted in trust with senior leaders. He was willing, however, to describe what he was advocating – but not how the Secretary responded.

What he did disclose is striking: he directly asked Hegseth for Tomahawks – even ‘a small undisclosed number’ – like Rice asks everyone he talks to in Washington.

“Even a small number, when successfully fired deep into Russia, will put enormous pressure on Putin,” Rice emphasized.

In Rice’s telling, the precedent is clear. When Ukraine first fired ATACMS missiles in November 2023 and destroyed two dozen Russian Ka-52 attack helicopters, Moscow abruptly pulled its helicopter fleet out of Crimea and rewrote its battle plans.

“A few Tomahawks would do the same,” Rice said. “The range is so great that Russia simply can’t defend all its critical sites.”

Rice noted that the political challenge of introducing a new weapon is always the first hurdle.

“The first individual weapon of any new weapons system is always the most difficult politically. But once you cross the threshold – break the seal – the debate ends there. And then it is not a debate. We saw this with every weapons system: HIMARS, cluster munitions, Abrams tanks, Leopard tanks, 120mm depleted uranium tank rounds, 165km ATACMS, 300km ATACMS, F-16s, and now Tomahawks. The Russians protest ‘red lines’… we ship the first units into Ukraine… and then the debate ends,” he said.

The marketing campaign

Rice is unusually candid about how he believes Washington is persuaded.

In 2022, after being named an adviser to then-Ukrainian commander Valerii Zaluzhnyi, he designed what he calls an “Integrated Marketing Campaign” aimed at “influencing the influencers” – Pentagon officials, defense executives, key lawmakers, White House staff, and the press.

He wrote op-eds, appeared on cable news, emailed hundreds of officials, and tracked momentum like a political consultant tracking undecided voters.

First came Turkish-supplied cluster rounds at Bakhmut. Then US cluster munitions in July 2023. Then ATACMS in October.

“Each time the momentum was obvious,” Rice said. “I feel it now with Tomahawks.”

His core argument is built around deterrence and proportionality.

Russia, he notes, has fired roughly 145,000 Iranian-made Shahed drones and more than 13,000 cruise and ballistic missiles at Ukraine. Supplying Kyiv with 100 or 200 Tomahawks, he argues, would not be escalation – it would be a response in kind.

“This is proportional,” Rice said. “In weapon types, not in scale.”

He dismisses Russian warnings about nuclear-capable missiles as cynical fearmongering.

“So are Iskander missiles,” he said, “and Russia is already firing those into civilian cities, including a children’s hospital in Kyiv.”

The real power of Tomahawks, Rice argues, lies not in the damage they cause but in the uncertainty they create.

“ATACMS forced Russia to move its airfields, command centers, and depots beyond 300 kilometers,” he said. “That’s tactical. The Tomahawk is strategic. Four thousand kilometers. You can send it through a window from Kyiv to Moscow.”

His proposal is simple – and designed to terrify the Kremlin.

Send an undisclosed number. Fire one a day at the most valuable targets. Increase the tempo if Putin refuses a ceasefire.

The Trump divide

Whether President Donald Trump would approve such a step remains an open – and deeply contested – question inside his own administration.

Some officials argue the president’s instinct to avoid entanglement and escalation still dominates.

A senior Trump administration official, granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, cautioned that “long-range strikes into Russia risk blowing up any diplomatic track before it even starts.”

“President Trump wants leverage, not a spiral,” the official told Kyiv Post.

Others close to the national security team see it differently.

One senior Senate defense aide said privately that Rice’s proposal is gaining quiet attention precisely because it fits Trump’s negotiating style.

“The president believes in shock and pressure,” the aide told Kyiv Post. “This is leverage. Real leverage.”

Rice himself is blunt about what he views as past mistakes.

He accuses the former national security adviser under the Biden administration, Jake Sullivan, of setting a damaging precedent by retreating whenever Moscow cried escalation.

“Lavrov played him like a fiddle,” Rice said. “Every time the Russians screamed, we backed down – and when we finally sent the weapons, Putin said it made no difference.”

He added: “President Trump himself has said he thinks Putin is playing him, and that will likely backfire against Putin as it backfired against Maduro and the Ayatollah. And I believe that will trigger Tomahawks.”

Capitol Hill weighs in

On Capitol Hill, the idea is no longer confined to think-tanks and advocacy circles.

A senior Republican Senate aide told Kyiv Post the Tomahawk debate reflects growing frustration with the stalemate.

“If the goal is to force Putin to choose between escalation and negotiation, this does exactly that,” the aide said. “It tells Moscow the sanctuary is gone.”

A senior Democratic aide echoed the sentiment, while acknowledging the political risks.

“There’s real concern about widening the war,” the aide said. “But there’s also a recognition that what we’re doing now isn’t changing Putin’s calculus. The question is whether we’re serious about helping Ukraine win – or just helping it survive.”

Support for tougher measures is also building among lawmakers who backed earlier weapons transfers.

“The same arguments were made against HIMARS, against ATACMS, against clusters,” said one House aide. “Every time, the sky didn’t fall.”

A new movement

Rice is now trying to recreate the grassroots and elite pressure that helped unlock Leopard tanks two years ago, the “Free the Leopards” campaign.

His slogan is ready-made for hashtags and placards: “Unleash the Tomahawks.”

“The Europeans should demand them,” he said, after all it is the Europeans who will have to fund these Tomahawks through the PURL, so in essence it is the Europeans who should be advocating and funding these Tomahawks.

“The vast majority of European partners are solidly behind an Ukraine victory and they are generously funding Ukraine budget. But they are not advocating for, nor funding Tomahawks. This is a strategic disconnect for their stated objective of Ukrainian victory. Ukraine cannot win on the defense only,” Rice said.

He added: “The Senate should demand them. The press should demand them.”

Notably, Rice insists that President Volodymyr Zelensky should not be the one making the ask. “He’s already asked,” Rice said. “This has to come from us.”

Rice also said Ukraine would accept NATO pre-approval for all Tomahawk targets, a safeguard he argues is necessary even though the alliance is not a belligerent in the war.

If the missiles are supplied by European partners, he said, the review process would reduce the risk of Moscow staging or exploiting a false-flag incident – pointing to the July 29, 2022 prison explosion in Donetsk that killed 60 Ukrainian soldiers and wounded 130 and was falsely blamed on a HIMARS strike, as well as the January 1, 2026 false drone attack on Putin’s residence that the Kremlin claimed Ukraine carried out during ceasefire talks.

The stakes

For now, the Pentagon is silent, and the White House is noncommittal. No policy shift has been announced. No missiles have moved.

But the argument Rice is making – that peace will only come when Moscow fears what comes next – is gaining traction at a moment when diplomacy looks increasingly hollow.

As one senior Republican aide put it: “The question isn’t whether this escalates. It’s whether anything short of this ends the war.”

And as Washington debates, the war grinds on – missile by missile, drone by drone – leaving Ukraine’s advocates searching for the next lever to pull.

For Rice, the answer is already clear.

“Uncertainty is the weapon,” he said. “And Putin understands only one language.”

Rice isn’t just pitching a missile; he’s pitching a psychological shift for an administration that prizes “the art of the deal” over the rules of escalation.

Whether Trump’s Pentagon buys the pitch is one thing – but in a Washington that loves a high-stakes gamble, the “Unleash the Tomahawks” campaign is officially the loudest quiet conversation in town.

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/68748